Uncorked (12 page)

As she listened to their words,
she knew that there was so much more to this situation. What Chella and Mitch
shared at this point was far from a normal relationship. In the short time they
had known each other; they had been confronted with issues that couples would
not usually be confronted with this early in a relationship, possibly a
lifetime. To say this would be an easy fix could not be further from the truth.

A few hours
later, Chella returned to
Mitch’s place to pick up her things. The penthouse was quiet when she entered.
He wasn’t home. She was grateful for that; she wasn’t ready to face him.

She quickly packed her bag,
freshened up, and called a taxi to pick her up. She was writing Mitch a short
thank you note when she heard the door to the foyer open. He stopped abruptly,
staring at her. His athletic clothes and hair were soaked from a workout.

She couldn’t handle being around
him and found it hard to hold herself together. She looked in his direction,
but not directly at him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey, I was just leaving you a
note to say thanks. I forgot to ask you how much I owed you for my medication.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was
nothing. Chella, I’m so sorry.”

“Mitch, I can’t have this
conversation now. Thank you for letting me stay here the last few days.”

“If you give me a few minutes to
shower, I can give you a ride.”

“I called a cab. It’ll be here
any second now.”

“Chella, I know I fucked up, and
I’m sorry, but please call me if you need anything. I’m here for you.”

She looked at him but said
nothing. Her phone rang.

“I have to go. My cab’s here.”

“Chella—”

“Mitch, I can’t. I have to go. I
left your key on the island.”

Chella tore her gaze from his and
left, eager for the privacy of the elevator so he couldn’t see her tears fall.

Chella sat on
her patio at the hotel taking in
the views while savoring some coffee. Mitch called her numerous times that
evening, but she would not answer. He left her voicemail messages apologizing
and trying to explain himself.

Am I being unreasonable? Why keep
it a secret? Why wouldn’t he just tell me?

Then again, I’ve been on the
ropes about whether I want him in my life or not and this bit of information
would surely complicate things. Still, how do you keep this sort of information
to yourself? God, why does this have to be so complicated?

Besides, Mitch was only human and
entitled to make mistakes.

Late Sunday night, at about the
time she would usually call him, she heard the familiar sound of a text
message.

She picked up her phone and
looked at the screen.

Mitch
Mariani

Sunday February
27, 2011

11:17PM

There are
no excuses. I should have told you. I’m so sorry.

I know
better.

Yes you do. So why didn’t you
just tell me from the start?

Truthfully, the divorce part
didn’t bother her, but the type of relationship he had with his child’s mother
concerned her. Would she have to deal with bitchy ex-wife issues? Why did they
get divorced? Did he still have feelings for her? Did she have feelings for
him? These were questions that only he could answer. At the end of the day,
Chella would have to be the one to decide whether she wanted to deal with the
issues in this type of relationship.

That being said, she missed him
terribly. She had gotten used to being around him all the time, especially over
the last few days. Since making her exit yesterday afternoon, she hadn’t been
able to get him out of her mind, no matter how upset she was with him. She
could not stop thinking about how he’d made love to her and how incredibly sexy
she felt when she was with him. She needed to sleep on it one more night. Maybe
the next day she would wake up with a much clearer head.

Mitch had been
honest about his reasons for not
telling her the truth sooner. She had a right to be upset with him, he knew.
Even he was upset with himself for lying to her initially. He had countless
opportunities to tell her the truth, and he had not.

When he received her message
saying not to pick her up the next morning, he couldn’t help but think the
worst. Their relationship would be over before it started. Lying to her was bad
enough, but he felt awful for hurting her, especially after knowing how much it
took her to put her trust in him. He could not get the image of the hurt she
had in her eyes out of his head, and he felt so guilty knowing he was the
cause. Still, no matter what she said, he would regain her trust.

No matter what.

Chella went to
work earlier than usual on Monday
morning, eager to preoccupy her mind with her new job. After thinking about the
whole situation on the way to work, she decided she would call Mitch during the
day. Kacy was right. This was his first screw up. He had been there for her in
the last few weeks—from the day she met him. In her mind, she played over all
the times he’d been there since that day, whether she had asked for his help on
not. There was the visit to the emergency room due to the wrist, the emergency
room visit due to the scorpion bite. He was there when Aaron left his mark
announcing his return and handled everything from her medication right down to
her accommodation after the scorpion incident. Her conscience would not allow
her to just sever all ties because of his lie or omission. They at least needed
to talk. He had earned that. After her morning meeting, she would call him.

A surprise was waiting on her
desk when she returned: three separate bouquets of tiger lilies and hyacinths.
The card read,

9:00
AM

I
will be sending you flowers

every
hour on the hour until

I am
forgiven.

I’m
sorry.

xoxox

Mitch

She couldn’t help but smile as
she read his words. She opened the second card.

10:00

Forgive
me….

xoxox

Mitch

A wicked thought crossed her mind
as she opened the third card. Let’s see if he’ll dry out his bank account
sending me flowers.

11:00

Pretty
please…

Am I
forgiven?

I’m
sorry

xoxox

Mitch

She glanced at her watch and looked
at the time: 11:55. Another delivery would be arriving in five minutes. As she
picked up the phone, her secretary, Jade, walked in holding a new bouquet and a
box.

“Hey, Boss. Somebody’s trying to
make a big impression. Where would you like this one?”

“Put it over on the filing
cabinet. Hand me the card and the box, please. Thanks, Jade.”

Just as Jade was heading out the
office, Craig passed by. The flowers must have caught his attention. Taking a
few steps back, he walked into her office.

“Chella, Chella, Chella. Have you
been holding out on me?”

She could barely respond, turning
a deep shade of burgundy at his words. “Well, I have started seeing someone,
but I wanted to see if it was serious before I said anything.”

 “By the look of things, I’d say
it’s pretty serious. Those look like forgive-me flowers.”

“What makes you so sure they’re
forgive-me flowers?”

“My darling, I’ve been married
for over thirty years. My wife has a garden with just about every flower you
can image. I know why the pink tiger lilies are there, but purple hyacinths?
The flower of forgiveness. And that many? It’s none of my business, but let me
just say this, if your answer is going to be, ‘Yes I forgive you,’ it’s
serious.”

“Craig, could you please just
leave me alone and stop embarrassing me?” she said in laughter.

After he left, she closed her
office door and returned to her desk to open the box and card. In the box were
her favorite and very expensive white chocolates. The card read,

12
Noon

Since
you didn’t respond

in
time for me to take you to lunch

I
thought I’d supply you with

your
favorite dessert

I’m
sorry.

Please,
please, please

Forgive
me

xoxoxo

Mitch

She dialed his direct line at his
office hoping to catch him off-guard.

“Mitch Mariani speaking,” he
answered at the other end of the line.

She smiled at the sound of his
voice. “There’s a really, really embarrassing display of flowers in my office.
I’m running out of surface space to put them on.”

 “Three words and you won’t have
to make any space for the one o’clock one,” he responded. She heard the smile
in his voice.

“And chocolates, too. You sure
know how to manipulate women to get your way, Mr. Mariani.”

“I’d prefer to look at it as
flattery, Miss Noon.”

“Well, today is your lucky day.
If you’d waited you could have saved yourself the expense. I had every
intention of calling you today, but I had a meeting first thing this morning.”

“You’re worth every penny,” he
laughed. “On a serious note though, Chella, I am really, really sorry. It won’t
happen again. I promise.”

“Is there anything else you’d
like to tell me that I should know?” Chella asked.

“Only that I’m sorry, and I’d be
honored if you’d let me take you to dinner tonight.”

“I forgive you Mitch, but we
really do need to talk.”

“I’m an open book. I’ll tell you
whatever you need to know. What time should I pick you up?”

“I should be done by six.”

“Great. I’ll see you then. I’ve
missed you Chell…”

“I miss you too,” she replied,
smiling.

“I hope this
makes up for my shortcomings,
Chell,” Mitch said as he handed her a box. They sat at a quiet corner table at
a quaint Italian restaurant.

“You didn’t have to do this. I
forgave you before I saw your flowers this morning.”

“Open it.”

“What is it?” she asked while
opening the box.

Inside was a beautiful, silver
compact.

“It’s beautiful. How did you know
I needed one?”

“The other one you had broke the
first night we met, remember?”

“I can’t believe you remembered
that. I love it,” she replied with a broad smile. “So, tell me about your
daughter?” Chella asked, as they enjoyed a limoncello with dessert, “What’s her
name?”

“Her name is Emily, and she’s
five years old. She’s adorable and extremely intelligent. I couldn’t ask for a
better daughter.”

“Do you have a photo?”

“I have plenty on my phone.”
Mitch replied as they perused through his phone together. He proudly showed her
tons of pictures of the little girl. She was the image of her dad—with brown
curly hair.

“She’s beautiful, Mitch. She has
your eyes.”

“She’s one of the greatest joys
in my life.”

“What went wrong between you and
her mother? Why did you get a divorce?”

“When Charlotte and I got
married, she had broken up with her college sweetheart of five years at the
time, only a year and a half before. Apparently, she never quite got over him,
and he over her. They had an affair, possibly even while she was pregnant with
Emily.

I saw her one day having lunch
with him about a month before she gave birth. When I asked her what was going
on, she denied everything. She said it was just a friendly lunch. Then after
Emily was born, I began to notice little changes. She would get home half an
hour later than usual. She started going to an outside gym, even though we had
one in the building where we lived. Other things I can’t recall right now. When
my suspicions increased, I hired a P.I. and he confirmed my fears, photos and
everything. I filed for a divorce immediately. She and George married six
months after our divorce was final.”

“I’m sorry.”